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Файл:Ghostly Tales III. Ghost Stories of Chapelizod
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THE DRUNKARD’S DREAM
“All this he told with some confusion and
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
To expound their vain and visionary gleams.
I’ve known some odd ones which seemed really planned
Prophetically, as that which one deems
‘A strange coincidence,’ to use a phrase
By which such things are settled now-a-days.”
BYRON
Dreams – What age, or what country of the world has not
felt and acknowledged the mystery of their origin and end?
I have thought not a little upon the subject, seeing it is one
which has been often forced upon my attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have never arrived at any
thing which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. It does
appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be
wholly without its use. We know, indeed, that in the olden
times it has been made the organ of communication between
the Deity and his creatures; and when, as I have seen, a dream
produces upon a mind, to all appearance hopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting as to
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an
abandoned sinner. We see in the result, in the reformation
of morals, which appeared incorrigible in the reclamation of
a human soul which seemed to be irretrievably lost, something
more than could be produced by a mere chimaera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could arise from the capricious images of a terrifi ed imagination; but once prevented, we
behold in all these things, in the tremendous and mysterious
results, the operation of the hand of God. And while Reason
rejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy
in every dream, she may, without violence to herself, recognize, even in the wildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering intellect, the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be spoken, which has been
spoken to terrify, to warn, and to command. We have reason
to believe too, by the promptness of action, which in the age
of the prophets, followed all intimations of this kind, and by
the strength of conviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting from certain dreams in latter times, which effects ourselves may have witnessed, that when this medium
of communication has been employed by the Deity, the evidences of his presence have been unequivocal. My thoughts
were directed to this subject, in a manner to leave a lasting
impression upon my mind, by the events which I shall now
relate, the statement of which, however extraordinary, is nevertheless accurately correct.
About the year l7 – having been appointed to the living of
C – – h, I rented a small house in the town, which bears the
same name: one morning, in the month of November, I was
42
GHOSTLY TALES • III
awakened before my usual time, by my servant, who bustled
into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a sick call.
As the Catholic Church holds her last rites to be totally indispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientious clergyman can afford a moment’s unnecessary delay,
and in little more than fi ve minutes I stood ready cloaked and
booted for the road in the small front parlour, in which the
messenger, who was to act as my guide, awaited my coming.
I found a poor little girl crying piteously near the door, and
after some slight diffi culty I ascertained that her father was
either dead, or just dying.
“And what may be your father’s name, my poor child?” said
I. She held down her head, as if ashamed. I repeated the question, and the wretched little creature burst into fl oods of tears,
still more bitter than she had shed before. At length, almost
provoked by conduct which appeared to me so unreasonable,
I began to lose patience, spite of the pity which I could not
help feeling towards her, and I said rather harshly, “If you will
not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead
me, your silence can arise from no good motive, and I might be
justifi ed in refusing to go with you at all.”
“Oh! don’t say that, don’t say that,” cried she. “Oh! sir, it was
that I was afeard of when I would not tell you – I was afeard
when you heard his name you would not come with me; but it
is no use hidin’ it now – it’s Pat Connell, the carpenter, your
honour.”
She looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if
her very existence depended upon what she should read there;
but I relieved her at once. The name, indeed, was most un-
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
pleasantly familiar to me; but, however fruitless my visits and
advice might have been at another time, the present was too
fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of their utility as my
reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task to
weigh even against the lightest chance, that a consciousness of
his imminent danger might produce in him a more docile and
tractable disposition. Accordingly I told the child to lead the
way, and followed her in silence. She hurried rapidly through
the long narrow street which forms the great thoroughfare of
the town. The darkness of the hour, rendered still deeper by
the close approach of the old fashioned houses, which lowered
in tall obscurity on either side of the way; the damp dreary
chill which renders the advance of morning peculiarly cheerless, combined with the object of my walk, to visit the deathbed of a presumptuous sinner, to endeavour, almost against
my own conviction, to infuse a hope into the heart of a dying
reprobate – a drunkard, but too probably perishing under the
consequences of some mad fi t of intoxication; all these circumstances united served to enhance the gloom and solemnity of
my feelings, as I silently followed my little guide, who with
quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street.
After a walk of about fi ve minutes she turned off into a narrow lane, of that obscure and comfortless class which are to
be found in almost all small old fashioned towns, chill without ventilation, reeking with all manner of offensive effl uviae,
dingy, smoky, sickly and pent-up buildings, frequently not
only in a wretched but in a dangerous condition.
“Your father has changed his abode since I last visited him,
and, I am afraid, much for the worse,” said I.
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GHOSTLY TALES • III
“Indeed he has, sir, but we must not complain,” replied she;
“we have to thank God that we have lodging and food, though
it’s poor enough, it is, your honour.”
Poor child! thought I, how many an older head might learn
wisdom from thee – how many a luxurious philosopher, who
is skilled to preach but not to suffer, might not thy patient
words put to the blush! The manner and language of this child
were alike above her years and station; and, indeed, in all cases
in which the cares and sorrows of life have anticipated their
usual date, and have fallen, as they sometimes do, with melancholy prematurity to the lot of childhood, I have observed the
result to have proved uniformly the same. A young mind, to
which joy and indulgence have been strangers, and to which
suffering and self-denial have been familiarised from the fi rst,
acquires a solidity and an elevation which no other discipline
could have bestowed, and which, in the present case, communicated a striking but mournful peculiarity to the manners,
even to the voice of the child. We paused before a narrow, crazy door, which she opened by means of a latch, and we forthwith began to ascend the steep and broken stairs, which led
upwards to the sick man’s room. As we mounted fl ight after
fl ight towards the garret fl oor, I heard more and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices. I could also distinguish
the low sobbing of a female. On arriving upon the uppermost
lobby, these sounds became fully audible.
“This way, your honor,” said my little conductress, at the
same time pushing open a door of patched and half rotten
plank, she admitted me into the squalid chamber of death
and misery. But one candle, held in the fi ngers of a scared and
45
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
haggard-looking child, was burning in the room, and that so
dim that all was twilight or darkness except within its immediate infl uence. The general obscurity, however, served to
throw into prominent and startling relief the death-bed and
its occupant. The light was nearly approximated to, and fell
with horrible clearness upon, the blue and swollen features of
the drunkard. I did not think it possible that a human countenance could look so terrifi c. The lips were black and drawn
apart – the teeth were fi rmly set – the eyes a little unclosed,
and nothing but the whites appearing – every feature was
fi xed and livid, and the whole face wore a ghastly and rigid
expression of despairing terror such as I never saw equalled;
his hands were crossed upon his breast, and fi rmly clenched,
while, as if to add to the corpse-like effect of the whole, some
white cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the forehead
and temples. As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible spectacle, I observed my friend Dr. D— , one of the most
humane of a humane profession, standing by the bedside. He
had been attempting, but unsuccessfully, to bleed the patient,
and had now applied his fi nger to the pulse.
“Is there any hope?” I inquired in a whisper.
A shake of the head was the reply. There was a pause while
he continued to hold the wrist; but he waited in vain for the
throb of life, it was not there, and when he let go the hand it
fell stiffl y back into its former position upon the other.
“The man is dead,” said the physician, as he turned from
the bed where the terrible fi gure lay.
Dead! thought I, scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous and revolting spectacle – dead! without an hour for
46
GHOSTLY TALES • III
repentance, even a moment for refl ection – dead! without the
rites which even the best should have. Is there a hope for him?
The glaring eyeball, the grinning mouth, the distorted brow –
that unutterable look in which a painter would have sought to
embody the fi xed despair of the nethermost hell – these were
my answer.
The poor wife sat at a little distance, crying as if her heart
would break – the younger children clustered round the bed,
looking, with wondering curiosity, upon the form of death,
never seen before. When the fi rst tumult of uncontrollable
sorrow had passed away, availing myself of the solemnity and
impressiveness of the scene, I desired the heart-stricken family
to accompany me in prayer, and all knelt down, while I solemnly and fervently repeated some of those prayers which appeared most applicable to the occasion. I employed myself thus
in a manner which, I trusted, was not unprofi table, at least to
the living, for about ten minutes, and having accomplished my
task, I was the fi rst to arise. I looked upon the poor, sobbing,
helpless creatures who knelt so humbly around me, and my
heart bled for them. With a natural transition, I turned my
eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay, and, great
God! what was the revulsion, the horror which I experienced
on seeing the corpse-like, terrifi c thing seated half upright before me – the white cloths, which had been wound about the
head, had now partly slipped from their position, and were
hanging in grotesque festoons about the face and shoulders,
while the distorted eyes leered from amid them –
“A sight to dream of, not to tell.”
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
I stood actually rivetted to the spot. The fi gure nodded its
head and lifted its arm, I thought with a menacing gesture.
A thousand confused and horrible thoughts at once rushed
upon my mind. I had often read that the body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the willing creature of
every satanic impulse, after the human tenant had deserted
it, had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac possession. I was roused from the stupefaction of terror
in which I stood, by the piercing scream of the mother, who
now, for the fi rst time, perceived the change which had taken
place. She rushed towards the bed, but, stunned by the shock
and overcome by the confl ict of violent emotions, before she
reached it, she fell prostrate upon the fl oor. I am perfectly
convinced that had I not been startled from the torpidity of
horror in which I was bound, by some powerful and arousing
stimulant, I should have gazed upon this unearthly apparition
until I had fairly lost my senses. As it was, however, the spell
was broken, superstition gave way to reason: the man whom
all believed to have been actually dead, was living! Dr. D— was
instantly standing by the bedside, and, upon examination, he
found that a sudden and copious fl ow of blood had taken place
from the wound which the lancet had left, and this, no doubt,
had effected his sudden and almost preternatural restoration
to an existence from which all thought he had been for ever
removed. The man was still speechless, but he seemed to understand the physician when he forbid his repeating the painful and fruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he
at once resigned himself quietly into his hands.
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GHOSTLY TALES • III
I left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding freely – apparently with little of the drowsiness which
accompanies apoplexy; indeed, Dr. D— told me that he had
never before witnessed a seizure which seemed to combine the
symptoms of so many kinds, and yet which belonged to none
of the recognized classes; it certainly was not apoplexy, catalepsy, nor delirium tremens, and yet it seemed, in some degree,
to partake of the properties of all – it was strange, but stranger
things are coming.
During two or three days Dr. D— would not allow his patient to converse in a manner which could excite or exhaust
him, with any one; he suffered him merely, as briefl y as possible, to express his immediate wants, and it was not until the
fourth day after my early visit, the particulars of which I have
just detailed, that it was thought expedient that I should see
him, and then only because it appeared that his extreme importunity and impatience were likely to retard his recovery
more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short conversation could possibly do; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some hope that if by holy confession his patient’s bosom
were eased of the perilous stuff, which no doubt, oppressed it,
his recovery would be more assured and rapid. It was, then,
as I have said, upon the fourth day after my fi rst professional
call, that I found myself once more in the dreary chamber of
want and sickness. The man was in bed, and appeared low and
restless. On my entering the room he raised himself in the
bed, and muttered twice or thrice –”Thank God! thank God.”
I signed to those of his family who stood by, to leave the room,
and took a chair beside the bed. So soon as we were alone, he
49
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
said, rather doggedly –”There’s no use now in telling me of
the sinfulness of bad ways – I know it all – I know where they
lead to – I seen everything about it with my own eyesight, as
plain as I see you.” He rolled himself in the bed, as if to hide
his face in the clothes, and then suddenly raising himself, he
exclaimed with startling vehemence –”Look, sir, there is no
use in mincing the matter; I’m blasted with the fi res of hell;
I have been in hell; what do you think of that? – in hell – I’m
lost for ever – I have not a chance – I am damned already –
damned – damned – .” The end of this sentence he actually
shouted; his vehemence was perfectly terrifi c; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed hysterically. I poured some
water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him. After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything to communicate, to do
so as briefl y as he could, and in a manner as little agitating to
himself as possible; threatening at the same time, though I had
no intention of doing so, to leave him at once, in case he again
gave way to such passionate excitement. “It’s only foolishness,”
he continued, “for me to try to thank you for coming to such
a villain as myself at all; it’s no use for me to wish good to you,
or to bless you; for such as me has no blessings to give.” I told
him that I had but done my duty, and urged him to proceed
to the matter which weighed upon his mind; he then spoke
nearly as follows: –”I came in drunk on Friday night last, and
got to my bed here, I don’t remember how; sometime in the
night, it seemed to me, I wakened, and feeling unasy in myself,
I got up out of the bed. I wanted the fresh air, but I would
not make a noise to open the window, for fear I’d waken the
crathurs. It was very dark, and throublesome to fi nd the door;
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